Peterborough councillors have a digital deficit

More than a year ago, Peterborough city councillor Gary Baldwin was successful in having city council request a staff report on requiring paperless agendas for its meetings. While the merits of the request would seem obvious in an age dominated by digital communications – councillors would review and make reference to online reports rather than paper reports – it is by no means certain that city council will agree.

Even casual observers appreciate that Peterborough City Hall is some distance away from the front lines of technological innovation. Its website is an old school, copy-heavy octopus that is irritatingly difficult to navigate. Its search engine, in response to a search request for “Shorelines casino on Crawford Drive” for example, produces zero results. It is not mobile friendly. In a notable understatement, city staff described the city’s website as “beginning to lag behind current expectations in both functionality and design” as they successfully argued for a remarkably expensive $425,000 “website refresh” in the 2017 budget.

On other digital fronts, the city has dabbled in the creation of apps, including those focused on waste management and the 2014 election. It is also working on transit and parking apps, but its progress in the field falls well behind that of comparable Ontario cities. Its Facebook and Instagram presence is erratic, uncoordinated and departmentally inconsistent; practices for updating appear to be random. The city remains reluctant to unlock its massive store of data for community use. It did not adopt a social media policy until 2013, and its development was met with a palpable lack of enthusiasm in some quarters.

To the chagrin of environmentalists, city hall still loves its pounds of paper: the 2018 budget books prepared for council took up an astounding 1,015 pages.

One of the difficulties of adapting to the digital age is that the city remains hesitant about embracing a full menu of online and interactive communications. Even Coun. Baldwin, who deserves credit for initiating the request for the staff report on the use of laptops and mobile devices, does not use one during council meetings. During the 2010-2014 term of council, there were four councillors who, for a variety of reasons, were unwilling or unable to adapt to the use of laptops. As a result, paper ruled the day. Similarly, in a 2015 year-end survey of councillors published in the Examiner, only four of 11 indicated that they had used a laptop or mobile device at a council meeting. Even that small number may have been an exaggeration: at last month’s Committee of the Whole meeting, no councillors were actively using laptops.

It’s worth noting that affordability is not a factor because funding for laptops and smart phones is included in the budgets of all city councillors.

The merits of having councillors adopt digital communications are obvious – environmental responsibility and consistency with the city’s own sustainability plans being foremost among them. So too is the avoidance of the city finding itself embarrassingly out of step with its community and with some neighbouring rural townships whose councillors already use laptops and mobile devices during council meetings.

It has been more than a year since Coun. Baldwin requested the staff report and none has been forthcoming. In preparing the report, city staff may be tempted to recommend that the use of laptops or mobile devices by councillors at council meetings should be optional. This would be a step in the wrong direction. It is high time that city councillors overcome their digital deficit and join an online culture that includes individual councillor training where it is required.

David Goyette is a writer, political advisor and communications consultant.